


Amid the Tombstones Rise Mourning Flowers

by hellsinki



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Emotional Roller Coaster, Hallucinations, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Snarky Shaun, but somehow holding on, but you knew this already, miserable Desmond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:32:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellsinki/pseuds/hellsinki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were destined to be together; or were they? Desmond has a vision in which Shaun tells him to never give up on him. But what if this all just happened in his head? And what if it was really what was going to happen?<br/>Desmond has to make a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Desmond

 

 

  
_Through me you enter into the city of woes_    
 _Through me you enter into eternal pain,_    
 _Through me you enter the population of loss._    
 _Abandon all hope, you who enter here._

(Inferno, Canto III)

Desmond heard screaming; loud and piercing, almost like a shriek, as if someone was being tortured, or was forced to see their beloved being torn apart right before their flooded eyes. He tried to move, but he felt like a dead weight, as if his limbs were chained together or cut off.  He tried to see, but there was only darkness, insidious and leering, like an open, infectious wound, that greeted his eyes. And his voice…where had it gone?

He felt a pressure on his cheek, or what he thought to be his cheek. It was firm, but not cruel. He recognized fingertips, calloused and wide, Desmond guessed they probably belonged to a man; Shaun. Desmond was relieved that it was Shaun’s name that came to his mind, rather than Malik or Leonardo. He failed to realize why he would be worried about that fact, though. Something felt terribly wrong, and Desmond’s memories were oddly lacking.

“Desmond. Desmond, wake up.”

The British accent, firm and authoritative, was almost soothing to his ears. His mind was slow to process the command, though.  What did Shaun mean, ‘wake up’? He was not sleeping, was he? This darkness that stretched out before him, did it mean…should he just…

Tentatively, Desmond’s eyes fluttered open, only to be assaulted by the light from a projector Shaun had turned on. His head throbbed painfully, and he squeezed his eyes shut, the darkness behind his lids now seemed more comforting than it did moments ago.  Shaun shook him by his shoulder, almost impatiently, and Desmond let out an involuntary groan of protest.

“Come on, Miles. Don’t go back to sleep, now. Wake up.”

There was a force behind Shaun’s words that made Desmond’s fragmented mind obey.  This time, he was prepared for the assaulting light, and it hurt his eyes less. He focused his sight on Shaun, who looked like he had just gotten out of the bed, his hair unkempt and the white, long-sleeved shirt he was wearing was rumpled and had two buttons undone.

“What’s wrong, Shaun?” his voice was rough, alien to his ears, and it hurt speaking, as if something big had been shoved down his throat. He grimaced at the picture his mind provided him with, and shook his head. Now was not the time for idle thoughts. 

“What’s wrong? You bloody wanker woke me up with your screaming. Now get up.”

Shaun sounded irritated, but Desmond liked to think he also heard a tone of worry in his voice. Slowly, he disentangled himself from the sheets, and sat up. The room swam before his eyes for a few seconds, the walls turned into liquid and threatened to swallow him whole. He grabbed his head into his hands, applying pressure and willing the dizziness away. There was a ticking pain at the back of his skull, as if his conscious was trying so hard to grasp something deep inside his unconscious and drag it up to the surface, and the effort was excruciating. What was so important that he could not remember? What had he been dreaming of? Why had he been screaming?

“Shaun, what happened?”

Shaun adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and looked down at him with a frown that like a permanent signature was still inking his features.

“Well, how should I know, Miles? I’m not in your bloody head, now am I?”

Desmond shook his head, somehow still disappointed by Shaun’s typical indifferent attitude towards anything that was related to him, and yet knowing he should not really care because Shaun did not matter.

But then, Shaun did something unexpected. He _touched_ him. He _willingly_ touched him, and Desmond looked up in surprise. The hand was resting heavily on his shoulder, in a rare demonstration of support, (or was he reading too much into it?) and Desmond wondered if it would be wise to trust it.

“It was most probably some weird dream caused by Mulholland Drive you watched last night. Now get up and clear your head before going back to bed. We have a long day today, and I can’t have you moping about the place because you were too scared to go back to sleep.”

Desmond felt indignation crawl up his groggy conscious at the suggestion of those words.  He swept Shaun’s hand away, and couldn’t help but notice how Shaun clenched it as if regretting ever giving him a supporting hand, ambiguous, trivial, and unasked for as it was.

“I don’t even remember what I was dreaming about.” He whined, and earned himself a smirk from the historian, as the hand unclenched, and the tension dissolved into the air for the moment.

“Good. Now get up and do something about your throat. You sound funny.” 

Desmond nodded, and tried for the last time to recollect his dream. He remembered darkness, paralysis, and screaming, but those might as well have been what he was experiencing while half-awake. 

Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched Shaun leave. Suddenly, he was engulfed with a kind of tender sadness that reeked of loneliness and despair.  Desmond cradled his head in his hands, and took several deep breaths. He had been always living a lonely life, breaking ties with his family when he was barely sixteen, and unable to form new relationships out of the fear of getting discovered. Always on the run, always on his own, he was not a man to feel the need to rely on others. Then why that spot on his shoulder, where Shaun’s hand had been resting a moment ago, still tingled and buzzed as if a new pulse had been revived in there? Why was Desmond missing the warmth as intensely as one missed a dead beloved? Why had he suddenly felt the urge to shout after Shaun, to make him halt and turn around, to ask him to stay? Why had he thought that Shaun, out of all the people he could have chosen to ask for emotional support, would be able or even _willing_ to cure his solitary heart?

Why had he even thought that he needed to be _cured_?

Desmond was fine, and nothing in the world could prove him otherwise. He would not turn out like Subject 16 simply because he was not Subject 16; he would not take himself out of the picture, because the picture was nothing but him, a blown-up photograph of all his responsibilities and duties, all his strengths and weaknesses, and if he were to fall apart, so would the whole picture, the whole assassin’s community, the whole world.

You had to be fine long enough for the picture to hold together until it was completed, and Desmond _was_ fine. Period. 


	2. Desmond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the late update; exams happened when I was least expecting them. Also my apologies for any wayward mistake you may happen to find in this chapter; English is not my first language and I'm my own beta reader. 
> 
> Warning: A brief, half-assed description of sexual encounter ahead. ;)

The jagged wall of the warehouse dug into his back, like rain of needles, unceasing and cruel; it must have hurt, but he did not feel the pain. His breaths came out in puffs of gray, so thick it almost fogged his vision, it was mid-December and he was wearing only a thin T-shirt, but he did not feel the cold. He felt the excitement, the adrenaline that washed over his senses, the fear of doing the unthinkable, the trepidation of the consequences, the vulnerable position he had so readily, almost wantonly, put himself into, but most of all, he felt the unfiltered sense of _pleasure_ , coursing through his veins like poison, addling his mind and making his heart ring jarringly into his ears and skip ten beats a second.

Warm lips, surprisingly soft, trailed open-mouthed kisses all over his exposed skin; hands, large and dominating, cold but reliable, sneaked under his T-shirt and  roamed over his chest. The sensations were alien (hadn’t let anyone touch him like this for years), but not unpleasant. Briefly, he thought about how wrong it all was. He was having an erotic moment with someone who did not like him (he might have cared about him on some level- he was the fucking subject seventeen after all- but did not necessarily like him), and just moments ago, he thought he was in love with Lucy, so what the hell was he doing fooling around with Shaun of all people he could have gone gay for? Just then, Shaun sunk his teeth into the tender flesh of his neck, and Desmond let out an involuntary gasp.  It hurt enough to bring tears to his eyes, but he was so aroused he did not care. He reached a hand to feel Shaun’s erection underneath his slacks that was pressing almost painfully against his body, but Shaun grabbed his wrist and twisted it cruelly behind his back, growling wetly into his ear, “No.”

Desmond’s eyes fluttered shut as Shaun knelt down in front of him, unzipped his jeans and yanked them down his hips with urgency, exposing his boxer-clad crotch. Desmond noticed that Shaun had a really wet mouth, as he mouthed his erection through his boxers Desmond could feel the wetness seeping in. Desmond allowed a small moan to escape through his parted lips, and leant his head against the cold wall as Shaun continued blowing him through his boxers. He opened his eyes to look at Shaun, and for a second his head spun and the walls of his rationality came crashing down. This was by far the most surreal experience he had ever had, even more so than his experience with the Animus, and Desmond’s mind refused to believe that this moment was really happening. What happened to Shaun and to his hatred, his dismissal of everything that had to do with Desmond? What broke the walls between them, what blurred the lines? What happened to _him_ , what happened to the suppressed affections he had for Lucy, what happened to his dignity, what pushed him all the way down, down into _this_?

How did it all happen, if it really was happening?

The cold air got a biting grip of his whole body as Shaun pulled his boxers down, blowing hot breath on his glistening cock, making him shudder and cling to Shaun even more forcefully, digging his blunt nails into the thin fabric of his half-buttoned shirt, probably leaving small dents on the delicate skin of his shoulders.  Shaun’s mouth was dangerously close to his throbbing erection now, and as Desmond looked down and Shaun looked up simultaneously, gazes interwoven in a blanket of heat and arousal, Desmond saw himself fall headfirst into a dangerous and unknown territory.  This shouldn’t have happened, a faint voice whispered miserably into his ear, but it couldn’t have been helped, whispered another, rather resignedly.  Desmond briefly wondered if he was Bleeding, if the voices in his mind belonged to his long gone ancestors, or if they were merely the voices of his conscience trying to pull him away from an experience that under normal circumstances he would have had no problem thinking of as pleasurable.  It was hard to tell when you had the whole length of your cock inside someone’s hot and amazingly wet mouth. Desmond’s musings came to a sudden halt as Shaun brushed the tip of his tongue over the head, teasing him, and Desmond had no idea why Shaun was doing that. Wasn’t this supposed to be a quick blowjob to relieve their frustrations? They were not supposed to put on a show, to make this any more pleasant than it needed to be, to make it seem as if they cared, as if this was more than a convenient way for them to blow off some steams. Yet, despite all this wrongness, Desmond could not and did not want to stop it from happening. It had been too long, he was losing a piece of his sanity with every passing day, the world was coming to an end, and Shaun had a very skilled mouth.

“Shaun… _fuckfuckfuck…_ don’t stop, please, don’t stop.” He begged, because he was afraid if he did not, Shaun would stop this sweet torture whose taste Desmond could have only guessed but never truly experienced from Ezio’s erotic adventures.  To Desmond’s relief, Shaun did not stop, hands circling his hips instead, and squeezing his ass, brushing his tongue along his length and making Desmond’s inhibitions pool around his feet in a careless abandon. 

Desmond could tell Shaun was taking his time, for reasons his faltering mind could not yet fathom. He forced his mind to let it go, at least for the moment, to stop thinking and just enjoy it while it lasted, and the warning voices in his head subsided obediently.  He closed his eyes, intent on enjoying every second of Shaun’s doting on his pulsing cock, but something pricked the edge of his mind, not exactly a whisper, or even a faint memory, but something foreign he could not exactly put his finger on, softly but persistently nudging him into opening his eyes again.

And when he did, he gasped.

“Shaun…” but he choked on the words. Shaun did not notice the panic in his voice, and Desmond tried again, “Shaun.” His fingers grabbed Shaun’s hair and forced his head back, away from his cock. “Shaun, s-stop…stop!”

Shaun scowled at the interruption and grimaced in pain, grasping Desmond’s wrists and forcing him to drop his vicious hold on his hair.

“What now, you twat? I don’t have time for foreplay, just come already.” He snapped, face red from the heat and motion. Desmond swallowed the fear that was threatening to break all over his face, and pushed himself off the wall. He hurriedly pulled his boxers and jeans up his legs and struggled clumsily with the zipper. The pit inside his chest was giving way to an abyss, the more steps he took towards…

“Just where in the bloody hell are you going, Miles? What’s wrong with you?”

Desmond turned slightly toward Shaun, who looked almost murderous with that scowl on his face, and gulped. He was scared, he acknowledged it, but there was also a compelling pull inside his mind, forcing his legs to tread where no sane man would willingly do.

“I’m…”His voice cracked, throat gone dry with chocking fear. “I’m seeing things, Shaun.”

His first impulse was not to tell Shaun about this, as he remembered all too clearly Shaun’s taunting and humiliating him, calling him a cry baby, when he complained about the Bleeding effect for the first time; but that was when Shaun had not wanted to have anything to do with Desmond, be it his problems or his cock, but now behind the spectacles shone a sheen of anger and hurt, so foreign an expression on that usually arrogant, composed face it was almost too much for Desmond to handle.

And just as Desmond had anticipated, the anger gave way to concern, “What, you’re Bleeding?”

Desmond thought about it; was he Bleeding? He was seeing things that were not there, things that were only visible to _his_ eyes, but he was also seeing things that _were_ there, like Shaun for instance, and the surrounding was still the familiar warehouse, and it was still cold, and he was still half-hard under his wet boxers, though the tingling sensation in his body was completely gone now.

He stared at Shaun for a few seconds, took into his barely disguised concern, and wondered if he had been reading the signals wrong all this time.

“I don’t think so, Shaun.” He began tentatively, filing this discovery of Shaun’s caring side away, “I mean, I can hear you, and I’m aware of my surroundings, yet I can still…”, he turned away from Shaun, fixing his eyes on something ahead of him,“…see this…person.”

It looked more like a person now, a man, the more Desmond stared at the ghostly figure. He was kneeling on the ground, head tilted downwards, shoulders shaking as if crying. A magnificent blue light was radiating off his body, lighting the darkness that seemed to be about to swallow him whole. Desmond was drawn to him, eyes drinking him in with morbid fascination, his death drive pulling at every fiber of his being stronger than ever. Even the voices in his head were urging him forward, whispering heatedly into his ears that this was important, that _this man_ was important, and Desmond was quite helpless to resist them. The closer he walked towards the kneeling man, the more tangible he grew. It somehow became colder and Desmond looked in astonishment at the snow under his feet. He was even leaving footprints behind, on the soft powdery snow beneath his sneakers, and the first snowflake that landed on his nose, melted against his skin, and slid down the bridge and fell on his lips, removed his consciousness from the reality completely and placed him right in the middle of a hallucination he no longer had any inhibition to distrust. Because he knew that man; the posture was foreign; the slouching shoulders, quivering body, head tilted downwards; but the curves were familiar; the shape of his head, the outline of his hair shining a little more brightly than the rest of him, the delicate glasses framing his face that were reflecting a field of glowing blue.

“Shaun?”

The man cloaked in the blue light tensed, his shaking stopped and his head turned towards his direction. Desmond could not exactly read his expression, the details were lost in the brilliant light that engulfed his face, but the tone of his voice was there, bewildered and tentatively hopeful as he said his name, ‘Desmond? Desmond is that you?’

“Shaun, it’s me. What…what are you doing here, out in the cold? God you’re freezing.”

He knelt in front of the British man and tried to grab his shoulders but his hands slipped through. Shaun did not follow the movement of his hands with his eyes. He could not see him.

“What does it look like, you idiot? I’m mourning.”

He almost chocked on the word ‘mourning’ and turned his face to the left, as if embarrassed to have been caught in a moment of weakness and ‘emotional nonsense’. Desmond felt despair at not being able to touch that man, to comfort him in the only way he knew how, to reassure him that he was there for him, always, no matter what.

“Mourning? For who?”

He asked but he didn’t want to know. He noticed the absence of Lucy and Rebecca and his heart ached and shriveled inside his chest. Shaun followed the direction of his voice like a man deprived of sunlight for ages. There was a moment of silence before he finally said, ‘for you.’

Somehow that didn’t feel as climactic as Desmond thought it should have; it _was_ his life but perhaps it wasn’t really _his_ life. This was a hallucination, caused by the ever faithful Bleeding Effect; it didn’t mean anything, and even if it did, Desmond already knew he was going to end up dead sooner rather than later. And the fact that it wasn’t Lucy or Rebecca somehow made hearing about his own death more preferable.  

“Where’s everybody?”

He looked around. All around him was snowy fields and an empty sky stretched thin to eternity. It looked like the apocalypse had happened. The thought nauseated him.

“Left. You told them to. I came back but…”

It was strange, hearing that note of wretchedness in Shaun’s sophisticated British accent. It was strange to know that this man, who had no qualms about making Desmond’s life miserable, was tearing up over his death.

“Shaun, what happened?”

“Don’t you remember? Does that come with death?”

“What? I’m not dead yet. I’m from the past, I guess.”  

“From the past, eh? So that means you’re not…you’re not really coming back are you? Not even in the form of a computer virus or a glitch or…or I don’t know a bloody hologram? I thought you’d be special enough for this.”

He sounded bitter, as if angry at Desmond for getting himself killed without a backup plan to come back as a ghost to haunt his living hours.

“Shaun, listen, don’t beat up yourself over this. You don’t even care about me.”

“I don’t care about you? You bloody American idiot! I…oh god you’ve got no idea, have you?”

“What?”

“Listen Desmond I…there is this little, I don’t know date? Yeah I think you really did take me out on a date…at this little dingy dirty café back in Italy. I was…an asshole to you. But I didn’t mean any of it I swear. I loved you even back then…after that silly rendezvous we had at the warehouse I couldn’t stop thinking about you and it was driving me crazy. Please, no matter what I say to you on that day, don’t believe a word because I loved you. I’ve always loved you. Don’t give up on me, Des-”

“-mond? Desmond, come on you bloody American idiot snap out of it! For fuck’s sake Miles!”

The decent into reality was painful; like suddenly being thrust into a pit of blaring light after having spent too much time in the dark. Desmond blinked owlishly as if trying to get rid of the haze and the pain. It was only when he tasted blood in his mouth did he realize he had been hit in the face. Shaun’s fist was still shaking from the punch he had thrown, staring wide-eyed at a dazed Desmond whose mouth was now bleeding and whose sharp golden eyes were softening into a warm and weary shade of brown. None of them talked for a whole minute and then Desmond raised his hand to touch the cut at the corner of his mouth.

“Shaun? Why did you hit me?”

He was lying on the ground, he noticed belatedly, with Shaun hovering over his prone body, slightly shaking with what looked to Desmond like rage and a suppressed urge to strangle Desmond to death. He thought about pushing himself up, to make himself look a little more dignified and in control of his surroundings, but he just couldn’t find the energy to do so. Shaun didn’t seem to be offering him a helping hand any time soon either.

“You passed out, you bloody wanker. I was trying to bring you around for the last couple of minutes but you were just lying there like a sack of dead weight, you irresponsible waste of space!”

 _You scared me…_ was what Shaun didn’t feel like to add but what Desmond could read in his eyes.

Suddenly everything he had just seen came back to him, washing over his consciousness like a high wave. His death, Shaun’s mourning, his confession of love…

“Yeah, I love you too, Shaun.” He mumbled under his breath and for a moment wondered just how much truth he had let slip into his sarcastic remark and how much of what he had thought as mere hallucination had roots in reality.

It was a long way down into insanity, but if the Animus had thought him anything it was how to free-fall with the velocity of losing 1 million neurons per memory.  Desmond was good at free-falling; too good, in fact, that he thought he really should slow down a bit, and if it had to be Shaun who was going to be the hand to keep him hanging for a bit longer, so be it. Desmond was not picky. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was once again pulled into the AC fandom by what happened at the end of ACIII; nothing fuels my imagination like aesthetic tragedy and noble death.


End file.
